The Man of Genius

Later on, he counsels him to “lay aside all these vagaries, and, whatever his origin may have been, to remember that we are all God’s creatures, sons of Adam, made out of the earth,” &c. A curious lesson in democracy, given by a king of Bohemia to the ex-tribune of an Italian republic!

But all was useless, and when, after many vicissitudes, he once more acquired a shadow of his former power – by the aid of money obtained by sheer trickery – he announced the fact at Florence, in a pompous proclamation, adding that “women, men, boys, priests, and lay-folk had gone to meet him with palms and olive-branches, and trumpets, and cries of welcome.”

These speeches seemed so very extravagant that their genuineness has been doubted by Zeffirino Re, on the ground of the extreme improbability of Petrarch’s having defended him, or the emperor regarded him with favour for a single moment, had he really entertained ideas so eccentric and heretical.

But that, however improbable, such is the fact is already evident à priori to any one who – even without examining these strange letters and still stranger circulars – has observed the progressive development of insanity in Cola’s career, and knows that it was just through his unheard-of audacity that he triumphed, and that the Bohemians were not so much scandalized as struck dumb by his eloquence,415 and afterwards astonished and deeply moved by his recantations.

Moreover, these writings were refuted by the Bohemian bishops, in a document which is still extant, and afterwards retracted by himself. With a delicacy of which historians have not taken sufficient account, they were not consigned in their entirety to the Papal Court along with the person of the Tribune, whose condemnation, indeed, could bring neither pleasure nor profit to the host who had been already forced by political considerations to betray the confidence reposed in him.

He remained, meanwhile, an isolated phenomenon, an enigma to historians, since it was not so much history as the science of mental pathology which could succeed in completely explaining him. That science has pointed out to us in Rienzi all the characteristics of the monomaniac: regular features and handwriting, exaggerated tendency to symbolism and plays upon words – an activity disproportioned to his social position, and original even to absurdity, which entirely exhausted itself in writing – an exaggerated consciousness of his own personality, which at first aided him with the populace, and supplied the want of tact and practical ability, but afterwards led him into absurdities – a defective moral sense – a calm marking the approach of dementia, which was only disturbed by the abuse of alcohol, or by a spirited opposition.416

Campanella.– If Cola da Rienzi was a strange problem for historians until resolved by the modern psychiatric studies on monomania, not less strange has been the problem presented by Campanella, who, from being a humble and disdained monk in a forgotten district of Calabria, claimed to be a monarch and, as it were, a demi-god against the power of Spain and of the Pope, and then suddenly became and died a zealot for both, contradicting himself, even against his own advantage, certainly against that of his fame.

At last, it seems to me, the problem is approaching solution, after the classical works of Baldacchino, of Spaventa, of Fiorentino, but, above all, of Amabile, especially since Carlo Falletti417 has passed those powerful works through the alembic of his synthetic criticism and removed from this strange medal the stains deposited by legends and historical prejudices.

“Campanella,” remarks Falletti, “with his badly formed skull, surmounted by seven inequalities – hills, as he himself called them – possessed most sensitive nerves, an acute intellect, and easily exalted emotions.” The mystical education of the order to which he belonged completed the work of nature; having entered a Dominican monastery at the age of fourteen, he always lived outside the real world. He spent eight years in the schools of Calabria amid disputes with his masters and fellow-pupils, and then departed, almost fled, from Cosenza and went to Naples. But no good fortune met him there. Soon after his arrival he chanced to speak slightingly of excommunication. He was at once denounced, imprisoned, taken to Rome, tried, and condemned. On leaving prison he decided to go to Padua; on the way he was robbed of his manuscripts; three days after reaching Padua he was accused of using violence against the General of the Dominicans; hence a fresh imprisonment and fresh trial. Discharged and set at liberty, he took part in public discussions, but the doctrines he openly professed led to another trial and imprisonment. He was only twenty-six, and had already spent three years in prison.

At the age of twenty, in the monastery at Cosenza, Campanella had associated with a certain Abramo, from whom he received lessons in necromancy, and who predicted that he would one day be a king. This was the starting-point of his wild and ambitious imaginations. It should be added that when studying astrology, especially in 1597, he talked with many astrologers, mathematicians, and prelates who all held that the end of the world was approaching. Excited by their arguments, he gave himself to the study of prophecy, seeking it in the Bible, the Fathers, and the poets of antiquity; and in the symbol of the white horses and the white-robed elders of the New Zion he saw the brothers of Saint Dominic. Convinced that the prediction of the Holy Republic referred to the Dominicans, he retired to Stilo. All the political and social disorders of his time were for Campanella manifest signs; and to these were added earthquakes, famines, floods, and comets. Evidently the prophecies were being fulfilled. No doubt 1600 was the fatal year which would indicate the beginning of great changes and revolutions. Campanella spread the prophecies, and prepared the ground for the Holy Republic. There can be no question that these predictions and preparations led to a real rebellion, because they fitted in with the miserable condition of Calabria. Such prophecies pleased many who cherished desires of revenge. In the ears of these exasperated people Campanella’s words sounded like a call to rebellion. Maurizio di Rinaldi, the leader of a band, so understood it, as did other bandits. Rinaldi cared little for religious reforms, and knew nothing of what the seven seals of the Apocalypse signified. He understood, however, that his arm was needed, and persuaded that it was not possible to fight against Spain with writings and words and the weapons of brigands, he sought the aid of the Turks. He was the real rebel, the real martyr in the liberation of Calabria from subjection to Spain. Of all the chief persons concerned in this disturbance he alone confessed himself a rebel; the others either denied the existence of a rebellion or professed their innocence. Seeing the old world doubled by the discovery of new lands, and Europe turned upside down by wars, Campanella thought of a universal monarchy with the Pope and himself for king and pastor.

Turn to his Utopia of the City of the Sun, in which all are educated in common. All the Solarians call each other brother; they are all sons of the great Father adored on the summit of the mountain on which the city is built. There is not, and cannot be, among them any selfishness. All consider the common good, and, under the guidance of the priest and head, live happily together; since all are instructed, and knowledge is the foundation of every honour, there is a noble strife of intelligence. The Solarian citizens have made wonderful progress in the arts and sciences. They have ships that plough the seas without sails and without oars; and cars that are propelled by the force of the wind; they have discovered how to fly, and they are inventing instruments which will reveal new stars. They know that the world is a great animal in whose body we live, that the sea is produced by the sweat of the earth, and that all the stars move. They practise perpetual adoration, offer up bloodless sacrifices, and reverence, but do not worship, the sun and the stars.

All this simplicity, happiness, and prosperity are due in the first place to education and to communism, and in the second place to the magistrates who are all priests. The spiritual and temporal head is Hoch, who is assisted by Pom, Sim, and Mor. Pom has charge of all that refers to war; Sim presides over the arts, industries, and instruction; Mor directs human generation and the education of children; he regulates the sexual relationships in order to produce healthy and robust offspring, only permitting the strong to procreate; the rest are allowed to sacrifice to the terrestrial Venus after fecundation has been ascertained.

The City of the Sun is not in favour of war, but does not refuse to fight; in battle her citizens are invincible, because they fight in defence of their country, natural law, justice, and religion.

The felicity of the City of the Sun rested, therefore, on a community of goods, of women, of pleasures, and of knowledge; on wholesome generation, on sacerdotal government, and on simplicity in religion. Campanella aimed at founding in Calabria a fac-simile of the City of the Sun. The whole of his trial for heresy showed that he wished to reform religion and to render it more in harmony with human nature; by his own confession it is proved that he wished to establish a sacerdotal government. Nauder affirms, in fact, that he aimed at becoming King of Calabria in order to extend his authority thence over the whole world. Campanella’s mind was in such a condition that it may be held, with Amabile, that he saw the possibility of founding a republic similar to that described in the City of the Sun. Naturally the head of this little Holy Republic, the Hoch of the City of the Sun, would be a philosopher, and, therefore, himself. All nations, observing the felicity enjoyed by the citizens of the New Sion, would accept the new law, and thus Campanella would become the monarch and guide of the world.

Only a lunatic would consider it possible to undertake the reorganization of society at a stroke, ab imis fundamentis, changing the form of government, and overturning the most ancient customs, institutions, laws, and traditions. But the madness diminishes if this reorganization is the consequence of a profound and general upheaval, like that proclaimed by the prophets for the end of the world. In his writings, certainly, we find puerilities which go to prove his insanity; if he had been an ordinary man they would not be remarkable; they would harmonize with the common prejudices of the day; but he had broken with theology, and had undertaken to examine its ratio; he had caught a glimpse of the modern state, and he proposed reforms which for his time were most liberal and remarkable. Thus he writes: “Law is the consent of all, written and promulgated for the common good” (A. pol., 32). “The laws should establish equality” (Ibid. 40). “The laws should be such that the people can obey them with love and fear” (Mon. di Spagna, c. xi.). “Heavy taxes should be levied on articles that are not necessary and are of luxury, and light ones on necessaries” (B. ii. doc. 197, p. 91). “There should be unity of government” (Mon. di Spagna, c. xii.). “The barons should be deprived of the jus carcerandi” (Ibid. c. xiv.). “They should be deprived of fortresses” (Ibid.); a national army should be established; education should be free (Ibid.); medical aid should be gratuitous (B. ii. doc. 97, p. 82). In fact, Campanella proposed what Sully, Richelieu, Colbert, and Louis XIV. did for the French nation.

Now when a man who reasons so profoundly fails to see the absurdity and impossibility of becoming, with a few followers in a remote country-side, the monarch and reformer of the whole world, he can only be insane. And so he was judged by the more sagacious among his contemporaries. Thus Father Giacinto, the confidant of Richelieu, wrote: “No one believes so easily any story that is told him, and examines things that he believes to be de facto with less judgment.” And again: “I shall always hold him for a man wilder than a fly, and less sensible in worldly affairs than a child.” Peirescio called him “bon homme.”

Following human intellect, Campanella reached Pantheism, the soul of things, the transformation of animate and inanimate beings, veneration of the sun, that “beneficent star, living temple, statue and venerable face of the true God.” Stricken by adversity, not assisted by his god, he returned to Catholicism, to the angels and miracles, to the future life which promises enjoyments which cannot be had on earth, and the restoration of the beloved lost.

Like all madmen, incapable of moderation he became furiously intolerant; hence his ferocious suggestions for oppressing the Protestants, and the title which he took of emissary of Christ or of the Most High. He imagined that his works would serve to confute the Protestants, wrote and disputed against Lutherans and Calvinists, wished to found colleges of priests for the diffusion of Catholicism, gave advice to those who would none of it for overthrowing heresy and propagating the true faith. In short, he ended as he had begun, in a delirious dream of religious ambition, which only varied in subject, going from one pole to the opposite.

But, I repeat, this phenomenon of contradiction, and of the passage from opposite excesses of feeling, is one of the most marked characters of monomania, and especially of religious monomania. I remember nuns of whom I had charge at the asylum at Pesaro, who on first becoming insane were violent and blasphemous, and later on in the course of their madness, apostles of Christianity; and thus it is easy to see that the miserly may, under the influence of insanity, develop extraordinary prodigality. We have seen Lazzaretti, a drunkard and a blasphemer, become austere and pious under the influence of insanity; and then from being a fanatical Papist becoming and dying an Anti-Papist, when he found himself repulsed by the Vatican. Recently De Nino, in his book Il Messia degli Abruzzi, has described a certain priest, become a Messiah, who, while insane, attempted reforms, at all events in rites, and who, during the last months of his life, like Campanella, starved himself in penitence for his revolutionary sins, and in spite of fasts and penances believed that he was damned.

San Juan de Dios.– Juan Ciudad was born on March 8, 1495, in the town of Montemor-o-Novo, in Portugal.418 He seems to have been tormented by the spirit of adventure from his childhood, as he left his father’s house at the age of eight. A priest took him as far as Oropesa, where he entered the service of a Frenchman in the capacity of shepherd. After some years he became tired of this work, and, being tall and strong, enlisted as a soldier.

The life he led in the army cannot be described; the officers set the example, and plundered as greedily as the privates. One of the former entrusted his share of the booty to Juan, who either lost or stole it. He was condemned to death, and was just going to be hanged, when a superior officer, passing by, granted him his life, but dismissed him from the army. He then returned to Oropesa, and resumed his former position. Towards 1528, he enlisted a second time, and marched under the orders of the Count of Oropesa. When the war was over, he returned to Montemor-o-Novo, to see his parents; but he lost his memory, and forgot his father’s name. He then left the place, and went to Ayamonte in Andalusia, where he became a shepherd. It was there that he believed himself to have been called, and, later on, to have had a dream in which he dedicated himself to God and to the poor.

Those were the days when the Barbary pirates flourished, making descents on ill-defended countries, and kidnapping their inhabitants, whom they sold at Fez, Algiers, and Tunis. Two religious orders had made it their special task to collect alms for the ransom of the Catholics who were being sold in the slave-market.

It seems that Juan Ciudad had the intention of consecrating himself to this sacred duty. He embarked for Ceuta, where he entered the service of an exiled and ruined Portuguese family, whom, it is said, he supported by his labour as an artizan. After a time, he grew weary of this life; he left his master and sailed for Gibraltar, where he established a small trade in relics and other sacred objects.

The sale of these having brought him some money, he left Gibraltar and settled at Granada, where he opened a shop. He was then aged 43, and was just about to undergo that mental convulsion which determined his vocation.

On the 20th of January, 1539, after hearing a sermon by Juan d’Avila, he was seized with a fit of frantic devotion. He confessed his sins in a loud voice, rolled in the dust, pulled out the hair of his head, tore his clothes, and rushed through the streets of Granada, imploring the mercy of God, and followed by boys shouting after him as a madman. He entered his library, destroyed all the secular books in his possession, gave away the sacred ones, distributed his furniture and clothes to any one who was willing to have them, and remained in his shirt, beating his breast and calling on every one to pray for him. The crowd followed him noisily as far as the cathedral, where, half-naked, he again began his vociferations and bursts of despair. The preacher, Juan d’Avila, having been informed of the conversion occasioned by his words, listened to the poor man’s confession, consoled him, and gave him advice, which does not appear to have had much effect, since, on leaving him, Ciudad rolled himself on a dung-heap, proclaiming his sins in a loud voice. The crowd amused themselves by hissing him, throwing stones and mud, and otherwise maltreating him. Some, however, took pity on him, and conducted him to the place set apart for the insane in the Royal Hospital. He was subjected to the treatment then in vogue, that is, he was bound and scourged, in order to deliver him from the evil spirit supposed to possess him.

This attack of mania appears to have been one of great violence. In general, with regard to mental maladies, the more excessive the alienation, the more easily it ceases. It is said that, in the midst of the blows inflicted on him, he took avow “to receive poor madmen, and treat them as is fitting.”

When the nervous exacerbation was calmed, he employed himself in attending on the sick, and, later on, obtained his liberty, and a certificate attesting his sanity. Having made a vow to go on pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he started barefoot, without a farthing, in the middle of winter. On his way through the forests and across the moors, he picked up dry sticks and made them into a faggot, which, when he reached an inhabited place, he gave in exchange for a little food and a night’s lodging.

It is said that, when he reached Guadalupe, he had a vision which exercised a decisive influence on him. The Virgin appeared to him, and gave him the Child Jesus, naked, with clothes to cover him. This was to show him that he ought to have pity on the weak, shelter the destitute, and clothe the poor – at least such was his interpretation. His mission dates from that day, and he executed it with so much the more zeal, as he believed it to have been laid upon him by the Virgin whom he adored.

Dressed in a white garment, which an Hieronymite monk had given him, with a wallet on his back, and a pilgrim’s staff in his hand, he returned to Oropesa, and went to lodge in the poor-house.

The misery of the inmates so touched him, that he went outside the city, begged alms for them, and gave them all that he received. Later on, he took to selling faggots in the public square, gave to the poor and sick all that he gained, and slept in stables, through the charity of their owners.

One day, having seen a notice posted up in the square, “House to let for the poor,” he conceived the idea of making it into an asylum. Having begged money from the rich, with which he bought mats, blankets, and utensils, he received and sheltered forty-six sick and crippled paupers. In order to maintain them, he went about the streets at the dinner hour, to collect from the rich the remnants of their meals, crying, “Do good, my brethren; it will return in blessing to yourselves.”

Juan de Dios’ example provoked emulation; several men offered themselves to help him. He instructed them in their new duties, and thus became the head of a group, which, by multiplying, has become the great congregation now in existence.

The resources now put at his disposal permitted him to treat the sick, “as is fitting.”

It is worthy of attention that Juan de Dios was a reformer in the manner of treating the sick, only placing one patient in each bed. He was the first to divide the sick into classes – he was, in short, the creator of the modern hospital, and the founder of casual wards; for he opened, in connection with his hospital, a house where the homeless poor and travellers without money could sleep.

It was at this period that he took the name of Juan de Dios. The good done by him did not remain unknown, and the name of Juan de Dios, father of the poor, was spread abroad through Spain. Profiting by this, he made a journey as far as Granada, and returned with abundant contributions.

He was exhausted by hard work and exposure rather than by years. He treated himself with exaggerated austerity – always travelling on foot without shoes, hat, or linen – only covered with a single grey garment; he fasted with extreme frequency, and imposed on himself the most trying exertions. He would rush through a burning house to save the sick, he often threw himself into the water to save children; he may be said to have died of the hardships he endured.

During his last days, he sent for Antonio Martin, his earliest disciple, and recommended the work to his care. Feeling the approach of death, he left his bed to pray, and died on his knees.

He was born on March 8, 1495, and died on Saturday, March 8, 1550.

He had a splendid funeral; sick men touched the bier in the hope of being healed; the sheet which covered the corpse was torn to pieces, and each rag became a relic. He was canonised on September 21, 1630, by Urban VIII., and is now known as San Juan de Dios.419

Prosper Enfantin.– Prosper Enfantin, though an engineer, a railway director, and otherwise connected with such rational and prosaic subjects as mathematics, nevertheless, in 1850, believed himself to be, and in fact was, the head of a new religion, a variation of that of Saint Simon. He had a handsome face and large forehead of an Olympian cast; he was very kind-hearted, but profoundly convinced of his own infallibility on all subjects – on industrial and philosophical questions – on painting as well as on cooking. He had what, in the peculiar language of monomaniacs, he called circumferential ideas, in which every new fact found, in its pre-established place, the proper solution. The new religion was to equalize men and women, and to make the language of finance and industry poetical. He himself represented the Father, and was always hoping to find the Mother, the free woman, the Eve, – a woman, reasoning like man, who, knowing the needs and capabilities of women, would make the confession of her sex without restriction, so as to furnish the elements for a declaration of the rights and duties of women. But the right woman was never found, for Madame de Staël and George Sand, to whom he and his friends first turned, laughed at them; they sought her in the East, at Constantinople, and found, instead, a prison! But for all that, he never lost his illusion. He used to say that only great men could found a new religion.

His goodness was exquisite; he constantly sacrificed himself for his followers – his sons, as he called them. These wore at one time, like certain monomaniacs, a symbolical uniform – white trousers to represent love, red waist-coat for work, and blue coat for faith. This signified that his religion was founded on love, strengthened the heart with work, and was wholly encompassed by faith. Every one was to have his name written on his shirt-front, and to wear, in addition, a collar adorned with triangles, and a semi-circle which was to become a circle as soon as the Mother, the Eve aforesaid, had been found.